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image by Martell Brown
Learning to Love AgainI’ve finally found a foster mom I can trust. The first time Yolanda saw my twin sister Taheerah and me, we were cursing out our foster parent. Yolanda was going to be our next foster mom. Who knows what she had in her head about us. We were new to the agency, so the only things in our file were bad things: that we violated curfew and didn’t do our chores, that I smoked and that my sister liked to drink. I believed she thought, “As soon as they act up once they’re out of my home.” That was the kind of attitude my sister and I had encountered at the other homes we’d been in. From One Bad Home to Another Taheerah and I entered care four years ago, after we spoke up about our father’s abuse. The first year we lived with five different foster families. We lived with a woman who only seemed to care about how much money she was going to get for us. Another foster mother’s main concern was that we wouldn’t say anything bad about her home, which was sweet on the outside but salty on the inside. Those bad experiences made me think all foster moms were the same. I couldn’t imagine trusting any of them. It was a relief when we were placed in a group home, but it hurt not to have anyone looking out for us. We ran free like little animals without an owner to watch us. Three years later ACS closed the group home and we went back to bouncing from one foster home to another. She Wasn’t a Fake At the agency a few days before we moved into her home, the only thing Yolanda said was, “There are chores and a curfew.” I didn’t know what to think of her, only that she was going to be my next victim. I was going to try to hurt her before she got rid of my sister and me. I thought it would be better to get kicked out for bad behavior than to have her reject us. My sister and I walked into Yolanda’s home feeling sure that within the next month or two we would be on our way out. There was no need to get all attached to the room, the bed, or even the rules. But that first day at Yolanda’s home my rabbit died. I started to cry. That rabbit was so small and defenseless. It needed me and I let it die. Then Yolanda hugged me. “If that happened to my cat Jackie I would feel the same way that you do,” she said. She wanted my rabbit to be buried and offered to buy me another one. That’s how I realized she wasn’t a fake. I felt different at that moment. It was like she felt the anger that I had inside of me, and was saying that it was OK to feel that way. That it was OK to be sad and for me to let my guard down, that not everyone in the world was out to harm me or my sister. That it was OK to let someone into my world and let them help me. It was just a hug, but it meant so much. Feeling More at Ease As the months passed, I began to feel a little bit more at ease. But memories of my past started to rise to the surface. I started having a lot of bad dreams about my dad, and I got so confused and scared. One day when I was feeling depressed, I told Yolanda I was feeling sad. She said, “Why do you think that you feel sad?” “I don’t know,” I replied. “I just do.” Then I looked at her and we just sat there and laughed. It was like we both knew that I wanted to talk but I wasn’t to ready to let it all out. She didn’t push me. Instead she told me, “When you’re ready to talk, text me on my cell phone.” That was fine with me. I liked that. When I told her about my nightmares, Yolanda stayed with me in my room and tried to comfort me. I talked to her a little, but I couldn’t get it all out so she just let me know that she was there for me. “Any time you need me, come and knock on my door,” she said, unlike other foster moms who just called 911 to have someone come and get me. When she left I was still a little bit scared, but more at ease. Talking Out My Fears Sometimes I talked to her about my dad, and how I was scared that he was going to come back and kill me, even though we’d left home years ago. Sometimes I’d feel like Yolanda, Taheerah and even our foster sisters had vanished from me, like the night devoured them and left me alone. I started staying up so that I could beat whatever might come and try to hurt my new family. I kept a knife to protect us. Yolanda had to take that away from me. When she did, she reassured me that she would never let anything happen to my sister or me. For some reason I believed her, I guess because she didn’t seem to mind that she had to be there for me in the night. Or if she did, she had the perfect way of hiding it so that I didn’t feel like I was bothering her. She Was There for Me Then, in November, my sister signed herself into a psychiatric hospital because she was feeling depressed. When I saw her at school, she was going to therapy and I was going home. That afternoon, Yolanda got a phone call from someone at the agency. Taheerah was on her way to a hospital upstate. I couldn’t believe it. . . |
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Handbooks for Youth Leaving Care You Are Not Alone, by Lawyers for Children Do You Have What It Takes? by Youth Communication Handbook for Youth in Foster Care English - Spanish |